Farming for Clicks - Influencing Addiction

For crochet, I enjoy a good cerebral documentary that makes me think about today's issues and stories of our past that influence decision-making or where humanity is today. I knew things were changing many years ago, when the dream of becoming a celebrity was fading and becoming a social media influencer was more achievable.

I would love to get your feedback on this topic. I'm curious about it. Bang me out a comment below.

It's not hard to tell when 'doom scrolling' is happening: a social media influencer is pretending, selling, or using some other tactic to keep all eyes on them. I'm old school in the sense that I started on YouTube before the words " influencer or social media were household terms.

For me, a good doom scroll is when creativity is expressed in the form of techniques, art forms, and, of course, innuendo humour. People in my sphere know my feed can be really wild in content.

Inside the Manosphere

I had the opportunity to watch the documentary Inside the Manosphere hosted by Louis Theroux. To be up front, it's the type of influencing circle that I am not interested in. But so eye-opening. Influencers, claiming to be raking in serious money, but giving suggestions for people to invest money, goals for vanity, human treatment of others and more.

The trailer is below if you are interested. To say the men of this documentary are ignorant is putting it nicely. But you will see that when the streaming shots are shown, their followers' comments are shocking. I won't put what I saw, but you will see it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms23FeJWvKU

In coming into what would be the future of social media back in 2008. I had no idea what social media would become. I was trying to navigate working with 'companies' to share patterns. It was a terrain as delicate as an influencer can easily sell themselves out on, drinking the Kool-Aid to put money in their pockets.

I had one goal: to teach people how to crochet. Nothing more, nothing less. I could have become popular faster and put serious money in my pocket if I had another objective. Slow and progressive, not speed and fury.

Even 18 years later, I get offers each week to suggest products, investments and teaching platforms to peddle to my communities. As you have seen, I haven't done that. It goes against the original conditions of what put me on YouTube in the first place. I want to teach crochet and be happy with stitching.

Eighteen Years Later

In the years that would follow, I would gain weight with my obsession with crochet. With being online, everything can be a hit piece. An emotional eater where comments can be worn on the outside of my body. I've had some pretty hard falls, mentally speaking.

I've always had a sense of humour with innuendo, as it was my upbringing. Close friends in my sphere know that about me, but I managed, for the most part, to keep it under the hood for years. Depending on the industry you work in, it's either for you or against you.

Mikey March 2024

Mikey, October 2025

Self Victimization

As the yarn industry is changing with the current economic situation of tariffs, trade, and manufacturing locations, it puts extra strain on teaching crochet, as yarn accessibility is called into question.

• If I use Product A, it's not available to a certain group of people, but Product B is accessible but blocked to another group. There is a sense in the yarn industry that consumers feel they are victims when something is out of reach compared to what they see. Comments can go negative so bloody quickly; it can go out of control.

I see that even with my pattern downloads, there are people who wish I had invested in having the patterns translated into different languages. There will always be someone who is left out.

How much can someone truly control before a consumer has to understand they may not have access or need to adapt?

My Take from Manosphere

Some of the men claimed that other men were being trapped in a box and needed to assert themselves and force their beliefs on others. Not a case to change, but a threat or a perceived conspiracy that can grow into a wildfire for those who get trapped in that thinking.

The documentarian said something that reasonated to me. It had something to do with the men telling their followers to stop being inside the box, but it's their own addiction to staying relevant and keeping up content. It appears to have overtaken their lives. They are living within the box they have self-created. One of them uses Only Fans Porn Women as his lure to use them to be relevant, but claims he is disgusted by them. They are, in turn, using him to be relevant. How can any of this be healthy?

When Shorts and Reels Started

When the reels started, I found myself on the outside of the box. I wasn't creating short-form content. I received advice to start creating this type of content. I was sucking at it, as I am used to long-form teaching content where the focus isn't on me but on my hands to learn something.

One of the mentors said to me, considering how big our community is, you really don't have content that is viral or huge in numbers. It hit me hard. I'm an average guy in a village in Nova Scotia. I don't focus on myself. My own Facebook Profile is self-focused, and I post videos of my home life there, but I rarely post personal content on my business profiles. I'm very careful about it as I know homosexuality can rub people the wrong way. You'd be surprised, or maybe not, that people are unaware that a man is behind The Crochet Crowd or even gay for that matter. It is a deal breaker for some people.

On my personal Facebook, I can share innuendos or stories that are closer to my real humour. I find myself censoring my business profiles out of fear, but I can let it slip unintentionally, as it's natural for that humour to come out. It's a positive in some elements, but also a social media nightmare on the other hand. I know firsthand that some influencers aren't the same person when the camera goes off; it's a bit surprising, but it serves their purpose.

The Last 20 Years of My Life

Daniel and I are in our 50s. Daniel's family is already dead. He is the last person before the family tree branch ends; without kids, his bloodline is over, and he will be forgotten in time. Both of his parents died of medical complications very early in life; in fact, Daniel's father died when he was a young child.

I never had kids either, and my family branch will also be dead. I have watched my parents get into their 70s, and their lives are unrecognizable from the vibrant people they once were. It's less than 20 years from now, from my current age.

I've adopted a new mantra: finishing up my life as I know it, with the final years focused more on experiences and creativity.

While twenty years may seem like a lot of time, it goes by faster than I can imagine. It's less than 20 summers and 20 festive holiday seasons. Each year, our bodies change, and simple things get harder.

Michael and Daniel in Holland, 2023

I was raised that money doesn't buy happiness, it buys comfort and a warm roof over your head, but doesn't solve mental, addiction or other issues. You can see that in the documentary Manosphere: they have their looks and money now, but they don't appear to be happy. They are stuck in the addiction of content creation.

I Consider Myself Lucky

In the early years of working with others, I didn't have a focus on telling people what to buy. I have also considered the inspiration to be the sales trigger. If you like it, you will look into it further and make your decisions.

In today's corporate world, this luckiness is fading away, with the intention of showing others what they are missing and urging them to do it too. I like highlighting yarn sales because I am a budget shopper when it comes to yarn. I feel like I am doing people a favour, but you won't see me peddling makeup, home decor, clothing, and much more. I could have taken that route over the past 18 years, but it's not my goal. Maybe I am too stubborn, but I feel like I know when an influencer is trying to get me to buy something and use their link to put money in their pocket. Realistically, I have tracker links on my outbound links so we can measure what interests the community. It's what dictates my future ideas.

I've always said, I just want to crochet and be happy. I don't want to be sold too; I want to be inspired. It's a hard line in the sand for me.

In time, my thinking will become outdated and irrelevant because the 'call to action' to get crocheters to do something is strongly required by those who help fund the costs of running platforms and hiring people.

So in the final 20 years, I just want to create, maintain and share. I've always said, in my head, I'm only as good as my next project. It gives me a goal to step forward and a reason to find meaning. While I don't leave behind a family, my patterns will one day be considered vintage... maybe sooner rather than later.

When you are surfing around, think about the motif of the person telling you to do something, spend money and more. Yes, I do push our YouTube Membership, as there are real costs to providing the content, but I intentionally price it based on the belief that less is more. Less money, more value. Where I fall down is that I don't beg for people to like and subscribe verbally. I think, if anything, the last 18 years taught me that I could have been bigger or more influential by asking to do so, but I didn't feel the begging was necessary, as the content is worth something.

What type of content do you like to doom scroll, and can you tell if you are being sold to? Let me know in the comments below.